Learning Objectives

Describe the the accepted standard method for studying psychoactive compounds.

CE/CME and PRICE

CE hours: 0.3 | fee:$5.00

Richard Yensen, Ph.D., History of Psychedelic Research at Maryland Psychiatric Research Center

Course Presenter(s):

Author(s): (click author name for biography)

Course Description:
History of Psychedelic Research at Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (CE) In the late 1960’s, a multi-million dollar interdisciplinary research center opened in the State of Maryland. This center for psychiatric research housed research in psychedelic psychotherapy performed by Albert Kurland and his associates at the Spring Grove State Hospital which were brought to prominent public attention through the CBS film “The Spring Grove Experiement.” Though the studies at Spring Grove State Hospital and those that followed at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC) ended in 1976, they remain the largest, most sustained and systematic study of psychedelic drugs and psychotherapy yet attempted. With Donna Dryer, M.D., we reviewed the studies done at the Spring Grove State Hospital and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center asking the following questions: 1) Why did some studies have such good results and others such equivocal ones? 2) What mistakes occurred that future researchers in this area might avoid? 3) The research team used statistical assessment and double-blind controlled studies. This approach is the accepted standard method for studying psychoactive compounds. Is this methodology appropriate and sufficient to study psychedelic medicines?

Biography of Presenter:

Richard Yensen, Ph.D., was a Research Fellow at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center from 1972 to 1976. Through many years of experience in government-sanctioned psychedelic research, he has evolved a non-drug shamanistic psychotherapy called Perceptual Affective Therapy. In the 1990’s Richard was co-holder of IND 3250, an investigational new drug permit issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to study LSD and psychotherapy until 2006. He is currently a licensed psychologist in California and director of the Orenda Institute in Vancouver and Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada and president of the Salvador Roquet Psychosynthesis Association. He has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore.

True/False Comprehension Quiz

Yensen believes that double-blind studies are very appropriate for clinical studies with LSD.

TrueFalse

The first group of participants who participated in the research at Spring Grove campus had all been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

TrueFalse

Eventually Spring Grove State Hospital replaced LSD treatment with DPT because it was shorter acting yet provided the same “depth” as the LSD compound, thereby enabling more studies to be done in a shorter period of time.

TrueFalse

After rapid progress was achieved by patients with alcoholism treated with LSD, the staff at Spring Grove objected to the “no treatment control” arguing that it was unethical to withhold such an efficacious treatment.